World News Korner

Courtesy of AOL:

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee released new information on Thursday that he claims is evidence that the Bush administration misled the nation in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

In a speech on the Senate floor, retiring Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., outlined a 2003 CIA cable that warns George W. Bush administration officials against making references to claims that Mohammad Atta - the man who led the 9/11 hijackers - met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in the Czech Republic before the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks. Levin claims Bush officials used the unconfirmed meeting to link Iraq to 9/11 to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"There was a concerted campaign on the part of the Bush administration to connect Iraq in the public mind with the horror of the Sept. 11 attacks. That campaign succeeded," said Levin, who cited opinion polls from that time showing many Americans believed former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks. "Of course, connections between Saddam and 9/11 or al-Qaida were fiction."

He referenced a Dec. 9, 2001, appearance by Vice President Dick Cheney on "Meet the Press." Cheney said: "It's been pretty well confirmed that he (Atta) did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack."

"Far from 'pretty well confirmed,' there was almost no evidence that such a meeting took place," Levin said. "Just a single, unsubstantiated report, from a single source, and a mountain of information indicating there was no such meeting. ... Travel and other records indicated that Atta was almost certainly in the United States at the time of the purported meeting in Prague."

Of course I am relatively certain that all of you already know that the Bush Administration lied us into the Iraq War. (And if you don't know that you need to drop everything and watch Hubris right now.)

However with all of the hubbub over the Senate report on torture right now it is a good time to remind ourselves that virtually everything we think we know about why we went to war in the first place is a lie.

And speaking of the torture report as I am sure many of you have heard, there is a concerted effort to convince the American people that President Bush himself was out of the loop when it came to the harshest interrogation techniques, but the CIA Director wants you to know that is all bullshit.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

The CIA's enhanced interrogation technique program was authorized by President George W. Bush, the bureau's current director John Brennan said on Thursday, and it had his full support.

Brennan, who worked at the CIA at the time as a deputy to a high-ranking CIA official, told reporters that Bush ordered up the program six days after al Qaeda attacked America, despite the fact that the spy agency did not have adequate space to house detainees nor did it have the correct training to interrogate them.

'In many respects the program was uncharted territory for the CIA, and we were not prepared,' he said, later stating that officers 'inadequately developed and monitored' the program and 'the agency failed to establish quickly the operational guidelines needed to govern the entire effort.'

Brennan also said that whether or not these "enhanced interrogation techniques" provided any intelligence that could not have been gathered without them is "an unknowable fact."

So to sum up, the Bush Administration lied us into a war that cost thousands of American lives, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqi lives. Bush ordered the use of torture techniques even before we had captives on which to use them. And yet to hear the conservatives tell it President Obama is the one who has tried to "fundamentally change this country."

Simply put, George W. Bush is a criminal and a traitor to his country.

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Courtesy of 3 Chics Politico:

Redditt Hudson a former police officer with St Louis County police says Darren Wilson processed his own evidence. Reddit also says he was in the room when Ferguson police chief Tom Jackson told them, Darren Wilson had no knowledge of Michael Brown being involved in a store robbery before the encounter with Wilson.

Hudson also wrote a rather incredible piece for the Washington Post about how being a cop taught him about racism within law enforcement.

I think Chris Hayes is one of the last television hosts still digging into Ferguson, for which I admire him greatly.

It seems since the Eric Garner situation hit the front pages, with incriminating video and everything, that the shooting of Michael Brown has been permanently pushed to the side.

And that is too bad, because in my opinion there is still much to learn about the Ferguson case, and it will never be uncovered now that most news outlets have moved on to the next hot story.

However Michael Brown remains dead, Darren Wilson remains free, and justice remains unserved.

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Sarah Palin's ghostwriter helped her compose a rather meandering post which included a bit about her friend Juanita's first moose kill, an article her brother wrote about hanging out with the Duck Dynasty dipshits, and this:

Running joke among the family is “we never win anything!”, so what a cool surprise today that Willow won the Wasilla High School Swim Team fundraiser raffle – a Remington with a sweet scope! (I know... only in Alaska.)

I have to mention that I am a life long Alaskan and have never heard of a high school affiliated raffle giving away a hunting rifle, but let's face it Wasilla marches to its own tone deaf drummer.

I have also never heard of Willow wanting to go hunting, so one has to wonder just how useful of a prize a Remington with a "sweet scope" really is to the budding hair stylist.

What I do know is that Willow tends to hold a grudge, so I will make sure that my curtains are closed at night just to be on the safe side.

Considering what I am about to share I think I will be moving up the list of people who the Palins would like to see eliminated.



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Veronica Dunnachie supporting Open Carry in Tarrant County

Courtesy of The Dallas Morning News:

An Arlington woman faces a charge of capital murder Wednesday after two people were discovered dead in her home, police said.

Officials said they were treating the slayings as a domestic homicide. Veronica Dunnachie, 35, is being held in the Arlington City Jail, said Sgt. Jeffrey Houston, a police spokesman. Bail had not yet been set.

The victims had not been identified and the cause of death had not been released.

Since this article the bodies were identified as her estranged husband Russ Dunnachie and his adult daughter.

After the slayings the suspect drove herself to Millwood Hospital, a mental health facility, where she was taken into custody. She was uninjured.

Separations, divorces, child custody battles, happen everyday in this country. Usually there are harsh words, recriminations, and lawyer fees.

But when you see the world as a dangerous place, and carry a gun on your person for protection, a verbal confrontation can escalate into something far more dangerous than simply hurtful words.

Despite what the NRA might want all of us to believe, in this case at least the presence of a gun is directly responsible for the taking of life, not the protection of life.

The equation is simple; no gun = no death.

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Courtesy of Real Clear Politics:

GOV. RICK PERRY: I think over the course of the last two years, people, you know, they realize that what they saw in 2011 is certainly not the person they're looking at in 2013, 2014, 2015.

KASIE HUNT, MSNBC: And are you smart enough to be president of the United States?"

PERRY: I think the standpoint of life's experiences. Running for the presidency is not an IQ test. It is a test of an individual's resolve. It's a test of an individual's philosophy. It is a test of an individual's life's experiences. And I think Americans are really ready for a leader that will give them a great hope about the future.

Yeah but she asked a question, and he never answered it.

You know a smarter person might have been able to do that.

And no running for the presidency is NOT an IQ test. But as Sarah Palin learned to her great consternation IQ does in fact play a significant role in preparing a candidate to answer reporter's questions.

And she also demonstrated that wearing glasses in not enough to project an air of intelligence.




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Courtesy of Mashable:

An anonymous Wikipedia user from an IP address that is registered to United States Senate has tried, and failed, to remove a phrase with the word "torture" from the website's article on the Senate Intelligence Committee's blockbuster CIA torture report.

The unknown individual has attempted on at least two occasions — first on Dec. 9 and then on Dec. 10 — to remove a line describing the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques as "a euphemism for torture."


Gee it looks like somebody REALLY doesn't like it when we call torture done by the United States "torture."

Perhaps somebody should have thought of that before they, you know, tortured people.




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Boy ain't that the truth!

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